Ouya
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Ouya was doomed to failure. It is better to let it die. We have better platforms.
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I think that it’s a shame because their core idea of allowing smaller developers to get their games into people’s livingrooms was a very good one. It just never felt like they really had any momentum - they were deflating from the moment they released the console.
I’m moving house soon and was contemplating all of my equipment the other day. I realised I wouldn’t even bother hooking up the Ouya - might just toss it or give it away and call it $150 that was poorly invested.
Agreed. There are multiple entries in that space currently (Fire Tv is doing quite well) and if the rumors about Apple announcing their update for the apple tv in June is true the micro console space should take off and it already seems pretty healthy. I think the category is here to stay but it’s a shame that OUYA the main pioneer in the space didn’t live up to expectations.
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Would say was fun while it lasted, but… well.
At least I’m ready for import customs in the future and it was a great feeling to see your own game playing on a seperate console on TV.
It also gave me the opportunity to learn some new things, but other than that can’t say I used it a lot.
Other consoles & companies just make it as easy to develop for them now.
Who knows maybe the ouya hype in the beginning just started all that, or at least accelerated it.
Do you think Nvidia Shield’s Console due next month will suffer the same fate?
Maybe in some countries? Although i think the overall idea is nice if it works.
For whatever reason I just don’t think a high end micro console makes sense (whether its shield console android tv or something else). At those prices a real console that has more AAA support (PS4 or XB1) makes much more sense than a micro console that is only a bit cheaper. Nvidia’s game streaming service seems too early as well (not low enough ping time to streaming server and I doubt they’ll invest the huge amount of money like netflix does for video to get distrubuted enough to every ISP or local region). Input lag will make that service really only viable for super casual games. Anything that needs fast reflexes won’t tolerate being streamed until everyone has awesome internet and that won’t be for quite some time. You can farm out some parts of the game more like what the major consoles want to do, but not the entire game server side and have your input take an internet trip to register.
To me the micro console future should be less than $100 and that space should be quite healthy. Fire TV seems to be leading that pack currently but whenever apple enters the arena they will be pretty strong too. Ouya is obviously dying and the nexus player is struggling but android TV looks to be getting more devices so as a platform it should be fine.
Plus at those prices there is another toy that I would much rather have.
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Sad story. I did have hope for the OUYA, I would still like to see an OUYA 2 with a much more powerful chipset, that could show off much more powerful graphics, if they could pull that off for $99 still, and get a few exclusive or just great looking titles, they might have something, otherwise I don’t see things getting better.
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I like OUYA and everything but anyone with sense knew the moment PS4 and xb1 came out, it was game over. It however should probably live on as the ultimate MAME station for all things brilliantly retro.
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Yeah, I just think that there are too many crabs in the bucket to have a successful micro-console. Also, hardware is bottoming out for cost. Just the other day I was reading an article about a duel core thumb drive computer with 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of hard disk space that was being manufactured for less than a dollar a unit. (Looking for link to the article)
Isn’t that about Ouya’s specs?
Yeah the intel stick looks promising if they can get the cost down a bit more and the performance a bit better. Likewise, the arm based fire tv stick or the roku stick or others do ok and are good for cost (~$40) but are underpowered for casual games. I’m sure eventually there will be a sweet spot found for an all in one media, games, etc. micro console. In general I don’t think people will care if it looks like a small box or is in stick format. In that space I see apps availability being more important than OS so whether IOS, Android, or Windows will win who knows (and users probably don’t care) but as long as one or more healthy TV app store ecosystem emerges it should be good for gamedev. The market will probably look more like mobile currently than PC/console so I would think cost for device would have to stay below $100.
The mobile space has encouraged single player style games (and a few online) but local multiplayer has really taken a back seat since Nintendo consoles started to struggle. I do look forward to when these cheap micro consoles are more prevalent. Some of my favorite gaming was during the N64 days whether it was local multiplayer Mario Kart, WCW wrestling, Goldeneye, Super Smash brothers, etc. Micro consoles on the TV should be able to handle games like that soon enough if not already (I love bombsquad) and pretty soon I’m sure the winner platform will be built straight into the TV and bluetooth controllers will be everywhere.
I think after the original hype it all died out, they didn’t even bother updating there site and keeping there forums clean and user friendly, if they not going to support the product then of course it will die out eventually when it becomes to much of hard work keeping it all together. I tried to build a game for the Ouya but it was poorly compatible with Unity Editor, poor plugins and took forever to workout the control setups. Just my experience.
Does anyone have experiences like that with smaller consoles or anything for the nvidia shield or steam boxes and such?
Just want to see what people think on all these.
My game is on the fire tv and fire tv stick micro consoles store and I’ve deployed to dev Nexus player (but not on the store yet). For the most part it is just like android. The only two caveats is designing for controller and dealing with TV overscan (don’t put your UI close to the edges). Other than that it’s just like any other platform doesn’t need any special work.
What about the sales? I ask because I feel no point doing extra work for smaller consoles if the sales will be non existent, unless you do it for hobby or fun.
Yea i was thinking the same thing. As surely because they barely have a market and the ones they have gotten to some would of dropped off or no longer pay attention to it.
I have heard UI is a problem for oculus in the same regard although that’s another topic.
Take my results with a grain of salt since my sample size is small (around 10,000 downloads across all platforms for a free ad supported game) but revenue and download (about the same percentages) approximation percent by platform (Amazon 60 %, IOS 20%, Google Play 12%, WP 8%).
Out of the Amazon chunk 84% is from the Fire TV the rest being Fire tablets. I will say that typical mileage would be a bit different now since I launched in August last year and the Fire TV was only out a few months at that point (I think I was around game 250 or so). There are currently 732 games so a bit more competition and the ecosystem seems quite healthy. In general I think you’ll find the market smaller but way less saturated.
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